


sticks and stones (will break your bones)

by MirrorImage003



Series: zutara tumblr prompts [5]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, High School AU, Modern AU, but rape is not in the plot, don’t get in a fistfight with katara, katara defends zuko’s honor, kinda angst, kinda drama, she looks like a cinnamon roll but will absolutely rock your shit, she will wreck your ass, tw: mention of rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 20:03:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19893559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorImage003/pseuds/MirrorImage003
Summary: tumblr prompt: “Who gave you that black eye?”modern/high school au. zuko just wants to know who he has to beat up for beating katara up.





	sticks and stones (will break your bones)

**Author's Note:**

> I really love modern aus...

“Who gave you that black eye?”

Zuko’s head jerks up from where he was bent over his cafeteria lunch tray. Sure enough, Katara has just sat down at their group’s corner table with one eye swollen shut and purple around the edges. Something ugly burns in the pit of his stomach, something like rage.

“None of your business, Sokka.” Her voice is firm, but she refuses to meet any of their gazes. She shoves her own lunch tray in her brother’s direction and hunches over to hide her bruised face in her folded arms on the table.

“Are you okay, Katara? That looks like it really hurts.” Aang leans over, attempting to examine her now hidden black eye. “If someone attacked you, we should go report them to Dean Pakku.”

A muffled huff answers him. “Don’t say anything to Old Man Pakku. He’ll make it into a way bigger deal than it needs to be.”

“The Dean doesn’t have to get involved. No one from the school does. Just tell me who did it.” Zuko can’t quite keep the dark edge out of his tone, and everyone at the table holds their breath because they know Zuko, and they know that he’s fiercely protective of his own.

Slowly, she raises her head to peak up at him above her arms. He’s surprised, and a little hurt, to see that her one good eye is carefully guarded. 

Her expression shudders, and the scrutinizing look in her eye is swiftly replaced by a warm smile that’s only a little forced.

“Don’t worry about it, Zuko. Believe it or not, the other person looks a lot worse.” 

Then she turns to nag Sokka about ordering his graduation gown and cap, and while everyone knows she’s purposefully avoiding an explanation, the conversation hesitantly returns to normal. 

But Zuko isn’t about to let it go that easily.

After sixth period Chemistry, Zuko leaves his senior lacrosse buddies to search out Katara in the junior hall. He has her schedule taped to the inside of his locker (she has his pinned up with a magnet in the shape of a sunflower) so he knows she’s just getting out of Honors Precalculus.

He rounds the corner and sees her talking to some girl from her class, and before she can protest, he’s hooked an arm around her shoulders and dragging her into an empty classroom. 

“Zuko, what the hell? I was trying to get the test corrections from—“ 

His hands reach up to grab her soft face, abruptly cutting her off. She hisses when he gently prods at the corner of her bruise. 

“Who hit you.” It’s not really a question.

Her lips purse, the dimple on her right cheek glaring up at him. She doesn’t look at him. It pisses him off.

“Katara, who fucking hit you?”

She grimaces and jerks her chin out of his grip. “I already told you and the others, it doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter? You can’t even see out of one eye and you’re telling me it doesn’t matter?”

She finally meets his gaze, her one eye narrowed in a glare. “Look, Mrs. Saito already sent me to Pakku and we worked it out with the other person. I only have to go to a few detentions and I can still run Prom committee. So yes, it doesn’t fucking matter.”

It’s Zuko’s turn to glare. He crosses his arms over his chest and scoffs. “Like I give a shit about detention or Prom committee—I want to know why the hell you fought someone in the first place.”

“Why do you even need to know?!”

“Because, Katara! Because you’ve never been one to get into fights before, and suddenly you just magically have a black eye in the middle of the day? You’re one of my best fucking friends and some piece of shit took a swing at you! And I don’t understand why you’re trying to keep this such a big fucking secret anyways.” His voice rings against the brick walls, but he can’t bring himself to calm down. 

Sure, everyone in their group has had their fair share of secretive moments, but they’ve all made sure to tell each other the important things. And if not everyone else, he and Katara have always understood each other better than the others, and they’ve never kept secrets. At least, not the secrets that count. 

So this whole ‘it doesn’t matter’ thing? Really not fucking with it.

He steps closer, making a conscious effort to unclench his jaw. “Katara, you already know I would never judge you for anything. Tell me what happened.”

For a moment, a guilty look sweeps through her form, sagging her shoulders and twisting her fingers in her backpack straps. But then, she shakes her head and straightens her back, throwing him one last warning glare. 

“Just drop it, Zuko.”

He stares after her, watching her long braid whip out the door, and tries not to take it personally.

—————

The next morning in Lit, Zuko scrawls a _did she tell you?_ on a piece of scrap paper and slides it over to Sokka. 

The other boy furrows his brows as he unfolds the note before quickly scratching something onto the paper with a pencil that has its eraser half-chewed off. 

_yeah. can’t tell you tho._

_what? why not?_

_not my place. ask her later once she cools off. she’ll probably tell you then._

Zuko scowls and takes the time to sketch out a pretty decent middle finger with his pen before passing it back.

Sokka snickers and doesn’t bother to reply. 

It isn’t until third period that he begins to piece it all together.

He’s sitting in the back corner of the classroom attempting to ignore Jet’s newest story about some sophomore girl he supposedly scored with over the weekend when a senior girl he sort-of knows walks in. 

She’s got two black eyes and a split lip. 

His face goes slack as the teacher starts roll call and the girl shuffles to an empty desk and roughly sits down. 

“Geez, what the hell happened to Rae?” Jet hadn’t meant for anyone but Zuko to hear, but he was never one for subtlety. Almost on cue, the class swivels as one to stare at the girl.

Whispers circulate through the students, and Zuko manages to catch Katara’s name among the hushed voices. 

The girl slumps further down in her chair and resolutely ignores her peers. The teacher snaps at the class to quiet down and Zuko spends the rest of the period counting down the seconds until the bell dismisses them.

When it finally does, he shoves his books into his tattered backpack, brushes off Jet’s questioning shout, and hurries to catch up with the girl. 

She’s halfway down the hall with another girl by her side when Zuko cuts them off. 

“Hey, I need to ask you something.”

The girl—Rae—looks startled to see him before something like panic flits across her black and blue face. She tightens her arms around the books she’s clutching to her chest and attempts to side-step him. He mirrors her.

“Leave me alone.” Her voice comes out a little shaky and Zuko’s eyes narrow.

“Not until you tell me why you and Katara got into a fistfight.”

She glares up at him but he can make out the turbulent fear just beneath her aggressive front. “I don’t have to tell you anything. Now leave me alone.” 

Others have begun to gather in a loose circle around them. Zuko prickles under the unwanted attention. Not wanting to cause a scene, he reluctantly lets her pass. She ducks her head and hastily elbows her way through the crowd, her friend right on her heels.

At the last minute, Zuko’s hand clutches the second girl’s shoulder. She jumps and turns to pin him with an angry glare.

“What the fuck?”

“Look, I just want to know why they fought, okay?”

She shrugs his hand off and sneers. “Why don’t you ask your fucking girlfriend?”

Zuko frowns. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

The friend let’s out a mocking laugh. “Well, you better tell her that.” She studies him behind hostile grey eyes for a moment before finally scoffing. “She went off on Rae like a fucking psychopath over some stupid joke about _you._ Really, you two are made for each other.” 

With that, she marches after Rae and Zuko is left feeling a little lost in the quickly emptying hallway.

———

Surprisingly, he doesn’t have to go looking for her this time. 

When school gets out, he takes his time saying bye to some of his friends for the weekend and organizing the books in his locker before heading out to his old beat up Toyota at the back of the parking lot.

Sure enough, she’s sitting on the hood of his little blue truck waiting for him. 

Katara looks up at the sound of his footsteps, and he can just make out her hesitant smile. 

He stops in front of her, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Your eye looks a little better today. Does it still hurt?”

She tucks a strand of loose hair behind her ear and shakes her head. “No. Well, a little, but not as bad as before.”

He nods, not sure what to say, and hates this tense silence that fills more and more with all the feelings he cannot put into words. He’s about to comment on something stupid, like how her Prom committee is going, when she sighs.

“Look, Zuko. I’m really sorry about yesterday.” She scrunches up her nose and rubs at the tops of her thighs with her palms. “I didn’t mean to take it out on you or anything. I was just embarrassed and upset, and I didn’t really know how to talk to you about it, because—“

“Because the fight was about me.” The words blurt out before he can stop them, and her eyes widen, startled.

“Well...well, yeah. How did you know that?”

Zuko goes for a casual shrug, but it comes out as more of a spasm. “I overheard some of the seniors talking about it.”

She levels him with a skeptical stare and he holds his ground for all of three seconds before sheepishly grinning.

“Okay, I may have cornered Rae after class and forced her to tell me. But in my defense, she looked like she’d gotten run over by a truck and dragged around for three blocks. How could I not figure it out?”

To his relief, she chuckles a little under her breath and her spine relaxes. 

“Yeah, I should’ve guessed you wouldn’t have given it up that quickly.” She pauses for a moment before reaching out and grabbing his wrist. “I didn’t want to tell you what happened, because I didn’t...I didn’t want you to have to think about what they said for even a second, Zuko. The things they said—they weren’t worth your time.”

Zuko is quiet, but his hand slowly lifts to thumb gently at the skin at the edge of her bruise. “But they were worth yours?”

Her soft exhale skims across the inside of his wrist, and there’s an almost ashamed look filling the blue of her eyes. 

“I just got so _mad_. They weren’t even talking to me, just walking right by me in the bathroom, but when I heard her say—“ she cuts herself off, jaw clicking shut. “When I heard her talking like she knew the first damn thing about you... I don’t know. I’ve never been that angry before. I just wanted to make her shut up.”

Unconsciously, Zuko steps closer to her until her knees are just shy of bracketing his waist. “What did she say?”

She eyes him carefully, as if to ask whether he really wants to know, but he merely holds her gaze, face serious and steady.

The skin around her mouth tightens and a slow burn of rage simmers in her pupils.

“She said she thinks you raped your sister and that’s why she went crazy and your dad burned your face, and that your mom left because she was ashamed.”

A coldness spreads from the back of Zuko’s head to the tips of his fingers, making him tingle all over. 

_It doesn’t matter what I do or how I act._ He thinks. _People will always only see my scar._

Vaguely he’s aware of Katara hopping down from her perch on his truck and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. She’s murmuring something to him but he doesn’t really hear her. 

Slowly, he settles his hands on her waist and gently pushes her away. 

“I’m so sorry, Zuko.” There are tears wetting her eyelashes into thick clumps. “They shouldn’t have—They don’t know what the hell they’re saying. Rae is an idiot, and I’m so sorry I even gave her so much attention. She’s not worth it, and I made it a way bigger deal than it needed to be. I was just—I mean, I just couldn’t not say anything. But I swear, I didn’t mean to start a fight, and I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I’m sorry. I—“

He thinks it’s about time he cut off her nervous rambling, so he leans forward and kisses the crown of her head. She inhales, stopping mid-apology, and stares unseeingly at the hollow of his pale throat. She can see his pulse jumping against his thin skin, and it calms her.

“Thank you, Katara.” 

They stand there in the abandoned parking lot until their hearts are beating in sync and they begin to feel a little less alone.


End file.
